American Minimum Wage Earners Held Hostage Over Keystone XL

One of the biggest political issues facing the United States right now is economic inequality and the fight for a fairer minimum wage. Unfortunately for American workers, that fight is being held up by another political fight that isn’t quite as large in scale, but it has some powerful proponents in the dirty energy industry. That project, of course, is the northern half of the Keystone XL Pipeline.

Just a few weeks ago, President Obama announced an extended review period for the pipeline, which would allow him to make a decision after this year’s high-stakes midterm elections. That announcement was not joyful news to proponents of the pipeline, and they’ve now decided to tie the project into an issue that is very dear to many Americans — raising the minimum wage.

Cole says that “there’s always a potential for compromise” with his Democratic colleagues in the House, and approving something the Republicans want in exchange for something the Democrats want is how the game is played in Washington, D.C.

But Cole’s comments go beyond the typical tit-for-tat deals that take place inside the beltway, and he is entering extortion territory by making these claims in the media, rather than to his colleagues on the House floor.

Senate Republican leaders plan to filibuster President Barack Obama’s proposal to raise the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour when it comes up for an initial test vote Wednesday, and are pushing for a vote soon on the Keystone XL pipeline instead.

“Cloture will not be invoked,” said Senate Minority Whip John Cornyn, R-Texas.

But Republicans in Congress aren’t the only ones trying to use Keystone XL to hold our political systems hostage — the oil industry itself is getting in on the action with a full-on assault on our elections.

The American Petroleum Institute (API) has rolled out a new series of radio and TV ads in states where Democrats are up for re-election, charging that they are holding up progress on the Keystone XL pipeline. Their goal is to coerce, through threat of electoral defeat, these vulnerable Democrats into voting in favor of the project, should it come up for a vote in Congress.

The petroleum institute said it's using every tool in its arsenal to build support for Keystone.

“We are certainly going to use up all of our outreach options at this point,” said Cindy Schild, the group's downstream operations manager for refining and oil sands. “We want to convince and show senators that their constituents want them to do the right thing.”

And if you think that President Obama isn’t using the Keystone XL project for political gain, you'd be gravely mistaken. His decision to delay a final verdict on the pipeline allows the Democratic Party the opportunity to do two things. The first is to court dirty energy industry money to help fund reelection campaigns ahead of the November election. The second is to allow his party to remain neutral ahead of the elections, so that dirty energy money doesn’t favor the Republican side more than usual.

"Fossil-fuel companies have spent millions funding anti-global-warming think tanks, purposely creating a climate of doubt around the science. DeSmogBlog is the antidote to that obfuscation." ~ BRYAN WALSH, TIME MAGAZINE